


Here we go Again

by Papapaldi



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s11e04 Arachnids in the UK, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humour, Girls Kissing, Lesbians, Secret Crush, Space Wives, Team TARDIS, Time Travelling Lesbians, cheek kiss, thasmin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 09:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16473050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papapaldi/pseuds/Papapaldi
Summary: Maybe – and this was a very big maybe – she had a bit of a crush on the Doctor. It wasn’t necessarily a crush, she assured herself, it was simply the fact that she admired the Doctor’s leadership, her raw sparking intelligence, her reckless hope, her utter but endearing weirdness, her flair for the dramatic, her strong moral compass, that hair, the colour of sunshine, eyes like… well, maybe it wasn’t so big of a maybe after all.





	Here we go Again

**Author's Note:**

> Thirteen: I'm A Lesbiab  
> Thirteen: Lesbiam  
> Thirteen: Less Bien  
> Yaz: It's ok take ur time  
> Thirteen: GIRLS

“I can’t believe my mum thought we were together, what a laugh.”

Yasmin was trying to break the awkward silence hanging limp in the air between the Doctor and herself. The boys had long disappeared to explore the seemingly infinite bounds of the TARDIS – leaving herself and the Doctor alone in the console room, as she mulled over the day’s events in her mind. There’d been giant spiders, political conspiracies, and a great many near-death experiences – yet the only thing that was running through Yasmin’s mind was her mother’s incessant questioning about her relationship with the Doctor. It wouldn’t have been any trouble under different circumstances – she had brushed away her mum’s questioning of Ryan in a heartbeat – but the Doctor… That notion had, quite frankly, thrown her for a loop. Her mother must have spotted something that she hadn’t even noticed, something about the way she acted around the Doctor, that had spurned that question. She had dismissed it at first, but now that she was thinking about it, now that she was conscious of every move she made, every thing she said; she thought maybe – and this was a very big maybe – she had a bit of a crush on the Doctor. Who wouldn’t? she justified to herself, the Doctor had come barging into her life driving back alien invasions and showing them the wonders of time and space, and she managed to do it all with a big adorable grin on her face while wearing that stupid old coat. It wasn’t a crush, she assured herself, it was simply the fact that she admired the Doctor’s leadership, her raw sparking intelligence, her reckless hope, her utter but endearing weirdness, her flair for the dramatic, her strong moral compass, that hair, the colour of sunshine, eyes like… well, maybe it wasn’t so big of a maybe after all. Perhaps the Doctor sensed her unease and was keeping quiet – something which she very rarely did. Or maybe she was completely un-phased and Yaz was overthinking the situation to the point that a throbbing headache was starting up on the side of her temple… again.

And so, she broke the silence, if anything just the silence the competing voices in her head, all of which contradicted each other and craved some form of clarity. The Doctor looked up from her work, which had been fiddling seemingly randomly with some dials on the TARDIS console and occasionally hitting them with a small rubber mallet.

“I mean,” Yasmin continued, “imagine you trying to pass yourself off as a regular human to my family long term, imagine the dining conversations…” she trailed off, because she was starting to actually imagine these scenarios with surprising clarity, and, making matters worse, she found herself looking forward to them. She shakes her head gently, “I’m rambling, sorry.”

“Hey it’s ok,” she assured her, “sometimes I have to let someone else do the rambling for once, hey?” she nudged Yaz lightly on the shoulder, grinning. “But, now you mention it I was somebody’s boyfriend once –well, fake boyfriend – at a Christmas dinner. I made quite the impression I think.”

Yasmin chuckled, “I’ll bet you did, you’re terrible at small talk.” She thought back to the Doctor’s strange antics back at her flat in Sheffield, it was adorable really.

“Actually, I think it probably had more to do with the fact that I was completely naked,” she said matter-of-factly. She shrugged her shoulders as if this comment was of no consequence, and got back to work.

“You what?” Yaz exclaimed.

Actually, no,” the Doctor said, still working away at the console, murmuring as if lost in her thoughts, “no I did do Christmas dinner once, a proper one, right after I drove away an alien invasion in my nightie.” She turned up to flash Yaz a daring smile, “great fun, I love Christmas! It was…” she trailed off, looking past Yaz’s face and up into the shafts of golden light wafting down from the boundless honeycomb ceiling. Yasmin had begun to notice just how often the Doctor did things like this, though at first she had put it up to her having a wandering mind and a short attention span – but this time she could see the way the Doctor’s eyes were glazed over in rosy nostalgia. She was far away, burrowed so deep into her memories that Yaz was almost worried that she wouldn’t be able to bring her back to reality.

But the Doctor was remembering why she had always said she couldn’t stop for tea, that she didn’t do families – because when those beautiful, and terrifyingly breakable people weaselled their way into her hearts, they would never, ever leave. She remembered a Christmas when she was new, when she had sat around a table in a crammed flat with colourful walls that clashed painfully with the bright reds and vibrant greens of festivity. She wondered what Yaz’s house would look like on a day like that, and hoped desperately that she would get to see it, while wishing, against every emotional impulse, that Yaz would be back to her normal life, safe and out of her dangerous path long before then. She remembered a young girl, only nineteen, just like Yaz, who had wanted more. She saw a better life on the horizon and had chased it until it changed her forever. That glint in Yaz’s eyes, that deep brown turned golden in the sun – she remembered those eyes from another face, long ago. _Your heart grows cold, the north wind blows, and carries down the distant Rose._

The Doctor’s expression softened, yet it was cold, as if she was simultaneously indulging her emotions and shoving them into a cell under lock and key. She looked as if she was preparing herself for a difficult task. “Look, what my mum said back there, about us seeing each other,” Yaz ventured, hoping to pull the Doctor out of whatever she was putting herself through, “how come you looked confused about the answer?”

“Hmm?” the Doctor’s eyes fixed back on Yaz. Her eyes were wide – wider than usual – and glistening, as if she was afraid tears would fall if she dared blink. “Oh,” she exclaimed, finally registering Yaz’s question, “to be honest I’m not sure what she was getting at, I’m not very good at modern colloquialisms.” She shrugged and, once again, went back to work – though Yaz suspected that she wasn’t actually doing anything other than keeping her hands busy, and trying to hide her face.

“Oh, ok then.” Yaz tried and failed to hide her disappointment. Here she was thinking that there could be something between her and the Doctor, and she just shrugged it off as if it meant nothing at all. Stop being stupid, she scolds.

A moment later, as if in answer to her thoughts, the Doctor sighs. “Sorry, no, that was a lie - I knew exactly what she meant and you’re right, I wasn’t sure,” she let the tools she was holding clatter the the surface of the console and turns around to face Yaz, defeated. “These things sometimes just,” she shrugged, “happen, with me, and I can never really pin point where and when they begin.”

“So, this sort of situation has come up before?” Yaz asked, glad to finally be getting somewhere.

“Oh yeah,” the Doctor exclaimed, eyes suddenly wide with enthusiasm, “ I don’t mean to brag but,” she raised an eyebrow and leant in, with the definite intention of bragging, “I’m sort of a ladies man – woman!” she shouted, correcting herself. She seemed to have to think it through for a moment, her eyes drifting up in thought “... yeah,” she muttered.

“Really?” Yaz scoffed, eyebrows raised in disbelief, “you?”

The Doctor raised her eyebrows as if to challenge Yaz. “You don’t believe me?” she cried, “I’ll have you know I’m brimming with charm!” she swished one side of her coat up to her opposite shoulder in a dramatic flourish, sending a piece of the console apparatus clattering to the ground with a resonating clang. The Doctor jumped and peered down at the floor, scrunching her face up into a caricature of childlike guilt – like a kid caught next to the broken remains of the family vase. “Ooh, sorry love,” she whispered, eyeing the centre of the glowing interface with caution, “I hope that wasn’t important.” Yasmin giggled, properly giggled, like some giddy little girl with a crush – which, she reminded herself – was a stereotype she was slotting into rather spectacularly. The thought made her cringe.

“All right, all right,” she shrugged, exasperated, “like I said, still figuring myself out.” Yaz indicated for her to go on with a teasing expression and gently hurrying gesture. “Right,” she put her foot down, sending her hair up around her face in a ball of fluff, “I’ve been married accidentally, twice. Once this girl started coming on to me after we went traveling for a while. She was pretty insistent actually, even after I told her I was over 900 years old and compared myself to a space Gandalf. She backed down, and good thing it was since she turned out to be my mother in law.” She looked to Yaz, as if this anecdote proved her point.

Yaz shook her head disbelievingly, “you say the weirdest things, honestly.”

The Doctor chuckled, “Not lying though,” she teased.

“I know,” Yaz smiled. “So, is it like a thing with you? Do you attract the, err, lesbians?”

“Oh, no not really - well, Bill, but she wasn’t into me, don’t think so anyway. Probably accounted for by the fact I was an old man back then but who knows.” The Doctor was rattling off at a thousand miles per hour, Yaz could barely catch every word.

“You were a what?” Yaz laughed, incredulous. She could never be sure when the Doctor was being serious, surely all these anecdotes couldn’t be true.

The Doctor didn’t seem to hear her, she simply stopped for a hasty breath of air and kept on going. “I was younger all the other times, well I say all, maybe a few were older. Point is it was all straight sailing up until now. Well, unless you count Jack, or the Master (which I don’t by the way, he’s not even human), or, come to think of it, the Brigadier, he did look great in that uniform –“  
“Doctor!” Yaz cried, stopping her musing from becoming totally unintelligibly fast.

“Right yeah, point is Yaz, I’m used to having the young ladies well - I’m just that good aren’t I.” she careened, leaning forwards and raising one of her stupid, nicely shaped eyebrows at Yaz again.

Yaz rolled her eyes, “shut up.”

The Doctor sighed and let her shoulder fall. Yaz realised that the Doctor had been holding her shoulders up and rigid, and It wouldn’t have surprised her if she had been holding her breath as well. “You’re great Yaz, you really are but...” she said, her voice now full of compassion. She placed a hand on Yaz’s shoulder, and Yaz couldn’t help but stare back into her eyes. Now she was the one holding her breath. “But what about you,” she continued cheerily, dropping her hand from Yaz’s frame and turning away, “what do you make of us?”

“Well,” Yaz began, searching for the right words that wouldn’t make her seem… what? Making her self seem as if she weren’t completely infatuated would be a good start. “I’m not too sure. I mean, we’re friends obviously, pretty new friends at that. I think you’re amazing, and the way you take charge, your courage and reckless hope, it’s honestly so inspiring.” She stopped herself before she said any more, she wasn’t sure that the Doctor needed another ego boost at the moment. She chose her words carefully, speaking slowly. “I think I could feel like that about you, if I wanted, if you felt the same.”

The Doctor smiled, an expression of sadness and warmth all at the same time. “I think maybe I could too,” she murmured, shying away from Yaz’s eyes. “I should warn you though, these things never really end well with me.” She scrunches her face up again, sniffing, trying to mask a sombre expression.

“They don’t end well for anyone, because of just that - they end.” Yaz was surprised at how much these words seemed to resonate with the Doctor. She looked up, her saddened plaster sliver of a grin growing to a beam. _Everything ends, and it’s always sad. Every Christmas is last Christmas._

“Yeah, I s’pose you’re right, oh wise Yaz,” she chuckled, nudging Yaz’s arm playfully.

“Hey, stop that!” she laughed.

The Doctor nodded, her playful attitude quickly turning back to that melancholic warmth. “Except I don’t age, well not very fast anyways, the longer I live the shorter the lives of everyone around me seem to pass.” She was about to do it again – Yaz could tell – she was about to retreat back into the arms of times long past, lives long put to rest and left behind.

“Doctor –“ Yaz begun.

“And,” she continued, “I don’t think I could do that again. Losing people is hard enough without a layer of romance covering grief with a whole other layer of pain.” She waved her hands around as if to simulate the notion, the energy in her fingertips contrasting with the hopelessness on her face. “I’ve done it before and, I’m sorry but, I’m not ready to do it again.”

The weight of her response lingered for a moment before Yaz gathered her thoughts. “So, that’s a no,” she said, trying not to show any disappointment or lack thereof, unfathomable.

The Doctor sighed, “I suppose it is. Is that okay?” She cocked her head to one side, once again her eyes filled with warmth and compassion.

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Yaz assured her, playing it all off. “It was just a thought really because, like I said, you’re amazing and honestly everything in my life has sort of just gone up in smoke - nothing makes sense anymore.”

“Ooh compliments from Yaz, this is great,” she exclaims, grinning with her usual sense of playfulness.

Yaz chuckled, “maybe stop being so bloody cute and it’ll be easier for me to forget the notion.” She turns to leave, to seek out Graham and Ryan somewhere in the depths of the ship that – she reminded herself – was more than a little bit alive. But, the Doctor just had to have the last word.

“Can’t,” she shrugged, a giddy smile stretching across her face, “sorry.”

Yaz turns around and smiles, one of her bright, brilliant smiles that sent her dark eyes glistening like stars in the night. She faltered for a second as the Doctors eyes met hers, and she lent in to plant a quick kiss on the Doctor’s cheek. The Doctor felt herself blush as Yaz drew away, bashful and clearly insecure about her sudden move. In her occupation Yaz retained an analytical mind, always accessing possible scenarios and their outcomes, drawing a mental image with harsh grid lines and coordinates mapping out her world. The Doctor had come along and covered it all with bright colour and glitter and hope, she couldn’t concentrate, which lead to strange impulses that would never have been acted upon under ordinary circumstances suddenly clearing the inhibitions she had so meticulously put in place crashing down at the sight of this strange, beautiful woman. She’d shown it all, things she normally kept so closely guarded. She waited with mounting anxiety for the Doctor’s response.

She grinned, her whole face scrunching up like a puppy wrinkling its nose. “W-well,” she stuttered, “now I’m properly confused.”

Yaz smiled, regaining some semblance of confidence. “Good,” she winked, and set off out of the room before she let the extent of her feelings stain her expression. Once she was around the corner, she grinned so widely that, to an outsider, it would have almost seemed manic – teeth bared, eyes shining. She did what she hoped was a discrete fist bump once she was sure that she was out of view.

Back in the confines of the room, the Doctor stood dumbfounded – but smiling along all the same. Her life, she mused, came to her in cycles. Death and regeneration, terror and victory, love and loss. All of it had happened so many times before and yet every time the good times were sweeter and the bad times all the more painful.She remembered in one of her past lives, being afraid of what she might become in the future – she still was, truth be told, especially when she had infinity stretching out before her – but these people, people like Yaz, like Rose, like Clara and Bill and Amelia Pond – they kept her hopeful. If she stopped loving them, she might just go cold. It was selfish, a desperate grasp for a lifeboat in a sea of cold and cruelty that every day threatened to swallow her up and extinguish that spark of hope, of adventure.

She turned her mind to Yasmin Khan, pushing the promise of future heartbreak from her mind, and concentrating on those bright eyes, that brilliant smile, and the feel of that kiss on her cheek.


End file.
